good morning and welcome to your weekend. it's saturday, august 20th, we're grateful to be part of it. i'm boris sanchez. >> so glad to be with you. i'm amara walker in the cnn newsroom. this morning the white house is defending its response to the spread of the monkeypox virus across the u.s. >> there are more than 14,000 monkeypox cases in the united states and in the last three weeks alone, the number of amon monkeypox cases in the u.s. tripled. the biden administration

declared it a public health emergency earlier this month but critics argue they have not moved fast enough. yesterday the deputy a mmonkeyp defense coordinator defended their response. >> we know what we got in terms of this outbreak. it's acting differently than any mo monkeypox outbreak before. we need what needs to be implemented to control the outbreak and clear which populations we need to focus on. it's more about the right time as opposed to there being a delay. >> those comments came one day after the white house announced a new plan called for boosting vaccine supply making anti viral treatments more readily available and reaching out to at risk communities. that plan is being put into action this weekend in s charlotte. health care workers in north carolina will be administering free monkeypox vaccine at pride events across the city.

charlotte is one of several receiving 50,000 vaccine doses from the national stockpile ahead of large public events. >> we want to get insight from an expert. we have kathleen with us this morning, the secretary of health and human services during the obama administration. kathleen, grateful to have your expertise and insight with us. so the biden administration is brushing off criticism that they've taken too long to form a task force and declare monkeypox a national emergency. how would you grade the white house response so far? >> well, boris, i think that they are working rapidly to both distribute vaccine in an equatable fashion and get more vaccine out to states as quickly as possible. i think that testing has been a bit slow and needs to pick up pace and their aim to do that but i think we have a huge

public health crisis in this country and it's not going to be addressed one episode at a time. we really need congress to pay attention to a huge worker shortage, a huge public under appreciation of public health and use essentially the covid crisis and now monkeypox as a wakeup call, as a post 9/11 for public health. we've got to rebuild this system from the bottom up. >> one of the most concerning things about the monkeypox virus is that even the vaccine's manufacturer expressed concern they likely can't keep up with demand. in your eyes, should the biden administration invoke the defense production act to help expedite that process? >> well, i think they can certainly look at that as one of the alternatives as well as looking at the stockpile for the

smallpox vaccine, which may well be effective against this outbreak, but again, i think this is -- we continue to be in a reactive mode as an outbreak breaks out. i was reading a report the other day about a county in new york who started with a measles outbreak, again, a large group of people in that county had not been vaccinated and they have had a series of measles outbreaks in speed of the vaccine being available and then have gone through colovid, now monkeypox and now have a paralitic case of polio based on a treatment widely available. we are seeing cases in the united states that measles and polio have been eradicated essentially and are coming back. we have a depleted public health work force, we have people who

essentially pay no attention to public health guidance and are inventing their own medical remedies. so i really do think monkeypox is a piece of this puzzle but we get a look at the whole public health system and what is happening in this country is really fairly alarming. >> specifically, on the monkeypox vaccine, i spoke to friends that have expressed frustration at not being able to get vaccinated. so even those that want to are now having difficulty and there is one step that health officials have taken recently to try to spread out supply. they've approved this different vaccination method that uses a smaller dose of the vaccine and it's a shallower injection. but there are critics out there, including the manufacturer that have raised concerns about the effectiveness of this method. they feel there is not enough research on how efficient it is and then there are also questions about getting folks trained on this new method.

in your mind, what do you make of it? does the reward outweigh the risk here? >> i think at this point, getting people some measure of vaccination is better than having a population that is just left in the cold. so yes, i think that it's based on public health experts saying this could be effective. i think they're trying to expand the existing amount of vaccine, spread it more widely, get people immunized. we will learn more as we go along but i think it's better than leaving an entire group of folks without any protection whatsoever. we know the population we're dealing with, the good news is monkeypox is debilitating and difficult. it is not life threatening. so trying to immunize widely is an important step right now and do it as rapidly as possible with the vaccine that's available. >> certainly.

while we have you secretary, you mentioned rebuilding a system from the ground up. the cdc launched a new plan this week to try to restore trust in the agency, acknowledging some of the missteps in handling the coronavirus pandemic. what do you think is most essential for them to address now? >> well, again, the cdc needs to take a look at the steps along the way why the initial covid tests failed, what the com communication failures were that led to a lot of confusion but it's part of a larger public health system. the country has a very fragmented public health system, lots of the data systems don't talk to each other. it's difficult for the cdc to collect data from some states who don't want to share their data and that's essential for epidemiology. i think the cdc review is very good news. dr. walensky has brought in

marin wakefield i know well is a terrific eadministrator and begn as an acting secretary of the department. she'll be terrific. i think building again, public health trust, being much more nimble, talking in plain language, communication is a huge part of this but a recognition that the state and local governments have vastly underfunded public health for really the last 14 years started with the downtown in '08 and '09 and never been rebuilt and then people were literally terrorized out of their jobs during colcovid, threatened at their homes for giving guidance for suggesting that masks needed to be worn. we're in an age where public health officials are often treated as the enemy instead of the public health protectors they are. this has to be looked at across

the board. the cdc can fix internal things in the agency but the agency won't work as the gold standard of public health unless they have state and local cooperation and that needs more funding. it needs more workers. it needs a really rebuild of confidence from the ground up. >> yeah, the rebuilding of that trust so critical considering, as you noted, so many folks out there that remain unvaccinated even against diseases that have been eradicated long ago. we have to leave the conversation there. appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me. >> of course. white house officials have privately expressed concern over the classified materials taken to former president trump's florida resort mar-a-lago, his residence including some documents that are only meant to be viewed in secure facilities. now, since the search, those closest to the president have maintained near silence on the issue insisting that the on going investigation is a matter for the justice department.

cnn white house reporter jasmine wright is in washington d.c. with more. hi, jasmine, what else are you hearing? >> deep concern. that's how one senior administration official put it to my colleagues about the internal state of worry at the white house over the transportation of of course, private documents. you're right, the white house remained nearly silent about this being disciplined about their messaging referring all comments to the department of justice but here thanks to my colleagues, we have a real window into the increasing high concern that the white house officials have over the documents that were taken to mar-a-lago. remember, at some point we learned that some of those documents were remaining in the basement of mar-a-lago. here you see the documents seized by federal agents and some were so top secret, the first line only to be viewed in the secure government facilities. top secret skip is what we call them in d.c. the real paramount concern from

officials in the administration and white house is exactly what was taken to mar-a-lago and whether what was taken could imperil the way the u.s. gathers intelligence and the sources they gather it from, now the white house is not exactly sure about what was included in those documents taken to mar-a-lago. they had read the inventory list. officials say the same one released to the public last week but still, there is concern over how they were handled and whether the process of how they were handled to take to mar-a-lago could put it into places not meant to go. there is a diplomatic aspect because on the inventory list, french president macron opens up questions whether or not that could have diplomatic implications on the rela relationships that the u.s. has with france and the way they gather information. so of course, here we have a real window into how the white house is privately concerned. they haven't said much publicly about the risk this information being stored in places that it's not supposed to be could have on

the way they gather information and sources it comes from. ca amra? >> so many questions. jasmine wright, thank you so much. senator lindsey graham may have to appear next week before a grand jury investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 ed pre -- presidential election in georgia. >> she's been trying to fight a subpoena in court but a federal judge ruled the south carolina lawmaker must testify. cnn sara murray walks us through the details. >> reporter: boris and a many, a a -- amara, federal judge already said she was not going to quash lindsey graham's subpoena. graham went back to the judge and said could you put a stay on your ruling? could you especially push pause because i'm planning to appeal? on friday, the judge said senator graham raises a number of arguments as to why he's

likely to succeed on the merits but all unpersuasive. graham has one other iron in the fire. he told the appeals court he's planning on filing an appeal and asked that court if they would stay the lower court's ruling. again, push pause on this so he doesn't have to show up tuesday and so they can wait and see how this appeal plays out. the appeals court has not yet ruled on that ask from graham. the district attorney is interested in lindsey graham because he had a phone call with the georgia secretary of state raffensperger that felt like graham was asking him to throw away ballots in a way that could benefit donald trump, graham has denied that this was his intent but this is of course, just one of the things that the district attorney wants to get to the bottom of with senator graham. we will see if he manages to get out of that tuesday appearance. back to you guys. >> sara murray, thank you. school districts across the country are grappling with a bus driver shortage. how officials are working around that and what they're doing to

get more people into the driver's seat. plus, it is that time of year. tropical storm warnings are up for parts of texas today. we're tracking where we'll see the rain and what it could mean for the drought. and emotional courtroom testimony from kobe bryant's widow vanessa. how she says the idea of pictures of the deadly helicopter crash going public still impact her until this day. ♪ ♪ ♪ ltaren. the joy of movement. ♪

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for us. >> reporter: this is a huge problem from parents, for students and teachers because for some of these kids, they'll be arriving to school late, which means they will walk into the classroom behind schedule. so i'm here outside of one of the school bus depots for fulton county school district and the atlanta area and they tell us that they're short about 200 bus drivers. and it's an issue they had last year because of the covid-19 pandemic and other shortages, other reasons and we're still seeing that again this school district. they're telling parents you can expect a delay, sending some drivers back around the block to pick up for kids so those kids will be dropped off late arriving at school. now, right now, there are two recruiting vents happening in the atlanta area to try to attract more drivers. they're offering more than $20 an hour starting including paid training just to get more drivers on the roads. this is happening all across the country. in tarizona they're expecting a

15 to 20-minute delay because of a bus driver shortage and in st. louis, as well. let's look at the numbers. st. louis, high schools and elementary schools being impacted by the bus driver shortage, almost 3400 students on 35 routes will be impacted and here is the superintendent explaining how they plan to mitigate these issues over the next two weeks. >> we provide $75 cards to elementary parents which is about 600 and bus passes, meaning a metro bus providing students transportation to schools is optional. we believe that two weeks will be the sunset of this on september 6th we should be in a position with those 35 routes that we're not running right now will be able to be run. >> reporter: another thing they're doing in st. louis is opening ups earlier so parents can drop off kids and make it to work on time.

this is what we're seeing as school districts are back. st. louis will be back in school starting monday. amara and boris? >> so many parents rely on these buses to get their children to school every day. thank you. you know, it's just not bus drivers. school districts across the country are scrambling to fill teaching positions, as well. in florida, governor ron desantis is allowing mill tar i have -- military veterans to teach without a teaching degree and some are going to a four-day school week to accommodate the shortage. in richmond, virginia officials offering major incentives to get more educators in the close ror classroom, here is the district's superintendent jason. >> we're down to about 125 classroom teacher vacancies and one of the things we've done is offer pretty robust incentives. so anybody moving to richmond, a teacher with experience will

receive $10,000 to come here and to teach at richmond public schools. new teachers moving to richmond, $8,000. we are advertising all across the state, all across the eastern seaboard to bring qualified educators here to richmond. >> until the richmond public school district can hire more teachers, officials say they plan to fill those vacancies with long-term substitutes. some much-needed rain is rolling through the southwestern united states but that creates a new set of problems even for areas stricken by drought. we have a look at the flood threat as several states are trying to figure out the best way to conserve water. stay with "newsroom." we're back in a few minutes. an. ♪ heat makes it last. soso you'll never sit this one out. icy hot pro with 2 max-strength pain relievers. and it's natural.

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some 10 million people are under a flood threat. the impact of the flooding is being felt in utah where crews are still searching for a person that's missing after they were swept away by flash flooding in zion national park. >> we're tracking a system in the gulf of mexico. let's get right to meteorologist alilison chinchar with the latet on that, allison? >> we're looking at potential cyclone four. sustained winds 35 miles per hour. the ultimate question is does it have enough time to stlerengthe into a tropical storm before it makes landfall in the texas, mexico border. if it gets to tropical storm strength, the next time on the list is danielle.

regardless of whether it gets a name or not. it's forecast to bring a tremendous amount of moisture to the eastern half of the state of texas as well as portions of louisiana, mississippi and even southern arkansas over the next several days. this will be the second system to bring the potential for flooding to the state of texas. the other is the one that is currently over areas of arizona and new mexico for today increasing their flood flood threat. the thing is that some will push that moisture farther east in the next 24 to 48 hours leaving texas with two separate systems to bring the potential for flooding. in all, over the next several days, look at the wide spread area here of those yellows, oranges and reds that you see on the screen. you're talking wide spread three to five inches but it's not out of the question for some of these areas to get six, seven, even eight inches of rain total just in the short period of time. on one hand, texas needs the rain. we're still dealing with an ongoing drought across much of

the state. the problem is you don't want, boris and amara too much rain in a short period of time when you had a drought because all of that water runs off. >> allison chinchar, thank you for that. as the southwest gets pummeled with rain, a new reality of water conservation is setting in. >> cnn bill weir is in arizona a hot spot feeling the immediate impact of the human caused disaster. >> reporter: summer monsoons are adding precious inches to the lake mead water line but not enough. america's largest reservoir 25 feet lower than last summer so this fall, parts of phoenix will see unprecedented tier two cuts joining arizona farmers at the end of the water rights line. do you foresee a day when it's tier three, tier four, mandatory cuts that will get really

severe? >> absolutely. i am genuinely worried about this system hitting dead pool. >> reporter: you are? >> absolutely. >> reporter: dead pool is mead is low enough to crash the whole system and when kathryn was running water departments in phoenix in mesa, it was the biggest worry but now it's worse and the feds are begging western states to cut up to one out of every four gallons consumed. i know from our reporting, there was some western water managers frustrated the burro wasn't tougher. they said you guys work it out or we'll work it out for you but they didn't do that. what are your thoughts on that? >> it is disappointing. the longer that we have to endure the uncertainty, the more at risk the entire system is and i don't envy the federal government, you know, the biden administration, they have really tough choices to make. no elected official wants to be the person saying who gets water and who doesn't. i'm sure they are desperately searching for the least worst

option but in the meantime, water levels continue to fall. >> we will invest heavily in conservation, efficiency, reuse and advanced water technologies like desalination. >> reporter: arizona's out going governor wants to build a desalination planltt in mexico d canals in kansas to bring more water but in the meantime, the call to useless puts fresh scrutiny on thirsty industries like golf. especially after an arizona republican investigation found 30 to 50% of courses here use more than their share of water with little oversight. state records show that the water cops of arizona have issued a pub nicnishment agains golf course exactly twice in the last 20 years. from the feds down to the locals, people aren't exactly lining up to be the tough sheriff desperately needed to

tame water use in the wild west. >> i don't golf. so i don't feel a need to defend golf but i will say this, people focus on it because it's visible. but there are a lot of things about what we do, what we consume, what we eat, what we wear that are also very water intensive. i don't like to think of it in terms of we don't have enough water. i like to think of it in terms of what do we have enough water for? do we want to build semi conductor factories or grow cotton? do we want to grow subdivisions or have high density development that is more water efficient? those are the conversations that we need to have. >> reporter: bill weir, cnn, phoenix. and more parts of the country are drying out as well. in texas, over 90% of the state is currently experiencing drought. with nearly 62% under extreme or exceptional drought conditions. that's most of texas. the two highest categories

according to the u.s. drought monitor and on the east coast, excessive heat has intensified in the new england area as extreme drought now covers parts of eastern massachusetts, connecticut, and the entire state of rhode island. for more now on this, is university of california los angeles climate scientist daniel swane. thank you for having this conversation with us. it's extremely important and in the past few months we've been experiencing and witnessing so many extreme weather patterns. extreme heat, drought, flooding. let's start with this intense drought that we're seeing in the northeast right now. i seen images of it. it's dry as the desert southwest in the northeast. what is going on? >> well, thanks for having me, yeah, there are a number of regions right now that are traditionally considered much wetter than the current drought region in the southeastern united states. they're experiencing pretty significant drought conditions and one of those is the northeastern united states.

another one is western europe, seeing satellite images of the united kingdom looking sort of brown and crispy, a little more like you expect to see in california this time of year are pretty striking so when you have droughts in places that are accustomed to water scarcity, relatively moderate droughts can have significant impacts. the drought in the south west is much more prolonged, wide spread and intense, the northeast isn't quite as prepared for drought. i think the impacts arise more quickly. >> is this seasonal or are these extreme patterns here to stay? this is something we're going to experience every season. >> well, what's interesting is this summer particularly north america there have been really extremes on both ends of the hydro climate spectrum. extreme flooding locally in some places we heard about the 100 or 1,000 year floods as well as severe drought in multiple

locations. as you mentioned, the southwest, souther southern plains and northeastern united states. we're seeing both ends of the peck t spectrum and the increase in the whiplash is a charcharacteristi >> what does this mean for our daily lives? i mean, because you're talking about more wildfires and also, impacting farming, which could obviously hurt our food supply then. >> well, it's tricky. you know, especially in the southwest where there are, you know, when the colorado river basin as that's drying out, there aren't right now a lot of alternatives. for all the folks that live there and all the agriculture that exists in this region, there is a finite amount of water and it's not enough for the demand currently there. so there are going to have to be some hard choices. some very hard choices i think as we just heard in the last segment and nobody knows exactly

what the form that's going to take in the next couple of years but i do think some of these droughts will get worse before better. >> the federal government is implementing these mandatory water cuts because we're seeing like the colorado river drying up. i mean, what can you and i do? should local and the federal government be doing about this? >> well, i think one of the most important things to realize is particularly in the southwest with the colorado river basin water crisis, this is not a ch transient event. it won't go away soon. this is likely to be the future of the southwest with less and less water available and still very high demand and so viewing this as a long-term or even permanent problem i think is a really important part of that approach rather than trying to find reactive or band aid short term solutions because ult

ultimately, the long term sustainability of water in that basin in particular is in question and i think we really need to be rethinking some pretty big picture things in the southwest. exactly what that looks like will be subject of considerable debate. >> i have to ask you about this as a california native. i read this study that you were apart of that california is due for an extreme mega flood. so here we're talking about droughts and extreme heat and now we're talking about massive amounts of rainfall up to eight feet in some areas spanning from the city to the mountains and you're saying it's not a matter of if but when. when are we talking about in terms of timeline and my goodness, what would that look like? >> well, that's right. california is a region more accustomed to severe drought and wildfires we've been discussing than the opposite problem of water over abundance but this is part of the world that is susceptible to both. you know, if you go back into the 1800s, there was a great flood of 1862 which caused the

central valley of california to essentially transform into a temporary inland seat. so in that study we're talking about, we looked at events like that. what would it be like if there were a reoccurrence of something like the great flood of 1862 and climate change about doubled the risk of seeing an event like that today. while it would be nice to see more water from a drought perspective, there very much is such a thing as too much water at once and that's really what the situation would be here where we'd essentially get multiple weeks in a row of really intense winter storm systems in california they're often called atmospheric rivers bringing as you say feet of rain, a storm after storm after storm over a multi week period that would likely overwhelm some of the states flood defenses. next phase we'll look at exactly what that might look like on the ground but pretty clear california hasn't been thinking as much about the risk of

extreme floods in this severe drought era. i think one of the big lessons here is we need to be considering both ends of the spectrum. >> absolutely. it's alarming and we're out of time, daniel. thank you for the conversation. if you want to learn more, google mega floods california and you'll find the study. thank you so much. >> thank you again. some emotional moments inside an l.a. county courthouse as kobe bryant's widow takes the stand in a case surrounding photos of her late husband and daughter taken by first responders right after that deadly helicopter crash. hear what she had to say in court, next. and a quick programming note for you, as well. don't miss an all new episode of "united shades of america" tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. this time w. kamau bell explores the tensions between visitors and locals on the islands airing

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looking over seas for a moment, at least 15 people are dead after gunman attacked people in a hotel last night. authorities say the gunman stormed the hyatt hotel after setting off car bombs. you can hear some of the explosions in the video. the hotel is popular with government and officials. the death toll is likely to continue to rise as somali security forces are battling the gunmen for control of the area around the hotel. the al qaeda linked terror group al shabob is active in the area and claimed responsibility for the attack. looking state side now, vanessa bryant, the widow of basketball legend kobe bryant gave emotional testimony in court yesterday as part of her lawsuit against los angeles county. >> at times, breaking down in tears on the witness stand. bryant says she suffers panic

attacks and ansxiety after they shared photos from the helicopter crash that killed her husband, daughter and seven others in 2020. cnn natasha chen has more now. >> reporter: amara and boris, we heard from a tearful vanessa bryant that gave hurtful testimony about panic attacks she never had before but start kpd experiencing about a month after the crash l.a. sheriff deputies and county firefighters had taken and shared closeup images of her loved ones' remains from the crash site. she talked about the moment she found out about that and how she was with family but had to run out of the room, run out of the house so her daughters would not see her fall apart. she said it felt like she wanted to run and scream and jump into the ocean but quote i can't escape my body, i can't escape what i feel. she said she's even gotten

strangers very disturbing direct messages on instagram shown to us in the courtroom, someone using helicopter and flame emojis and threatening to leak the images of kobe's body. she's sitting next to chris chester that lost his wife and daughter in the same crash and both of them describe this fear and ansxiety these photos could surface on the internet and how that is compounded on top of the grief they felt losing family members. the county in defense emphasized neither of them have ever seen a single one of these county employee photos out in public and when they had sheriff value lex -- alex villanueva, he said his highest priority is to stop the photos from getting out and not letting the horse out of the born so he asked deputies to

dele delete the photos instead of waiting for a formal investigation. when the plaintiff's attorneys pushed him whether he knew for a fact if the photos have been deleted, he said i believe they are and when further pushed he said god knows and that's about it. amara and boris, back to you. >> natasha, thank you. the federal government is cracking down on those annoying robocalls. what they are doing to stop them is next. ♪ icy hot pro. ♪ ice works fast... ♪ at makes it last. so you'll ver sit this one out. icy hot pro with 2 max-strength pairelievers. pool floaties are like whooping cough. amusement parks are like whooping cough.

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car's warranty, right? looks like officials are close to shutting down one of the most sophisticated illegal robo call operations, though. gabe cohen has more. >> this is jessica calling in regards to your volkswagon warranty. >> reporter: odds are, you've received a bogus auto warranty call similar to this. >> the warranty is up for renewal. >> reporter: now authorities are cracking down on a scheme an fcc official calls the most sophisticated illegal robo call operation they've ever seen. more than 8 billion spam calls to americans and a lawsuit claims two california men are behind nearly all of it. michael jones and roy cox junior are accused of violating t telemarketing laws by tracking americans into buying vehicle service contracts and making millions of dollars off the scam. cnn tried to track them down. dozens of calls, texts and emils but no response.

jones and he was sued and like many robo call scammers, they're accused of just retooling their operation. >> we're coming in to try to take them down. >> reporter: so now ohio attorney general dave yost is suing cox, jones and their associates potentially for millions of dollars. >> it's enough to take back everything they've made. if a slap on the wrist doesn't work, punch him in the face and knock him down. >> reporter: did you consider criminal charges here? >> criminal charges are not off the table. >> reporter: yost is part of an anti robo call task force attorneys general from every state working with federal officials to ramp up illegal robo call enforcement. in 2021 americans received an estimated 21 billion scam robocalls costing them $40 billion in a 12-month period. >> it's usually very hard to find the callers. all of these unwanted robocalls

are undermining the value of our telephone system. >> reporter: most of the calls come from overseas and tracing them is a fairly new technology so up to now, authorities have struggled to stop them and the callers that do get caught often go right back to scamming according to an fcc official. so authorities are turning attention to the gateway providers. the telecom companies that let those robocalls onto the u.s. phone network. >> specifically those that we believe may be turning a blind eye to these kind of calling scams. >> reporter: when a call comes from overseas, typically several small carriers get paid to pass it along. they are using trace back to identify the original source of the illegal calls and agencies like the fcc can order the rest of the industry to stop doing business with those carriers. >> if there are not this tier of

providers willing to take this bad traffic, then the robo callers will find themselves with nowhere to place their calls. >> reporter: that's the case with the auto warranty skacam. the fcc ordered all robocalls from eight service providers linked to the scheme. since then, those calls have nearly vanished according to a robo call analysis company. do you think you can really stop these scammers? >> i think we can significantly decrease it. >> reporter: how long will that take? >> years, in the months. it's an arm's race between the enforcers and the criminals but we're getting smarter and we're on to their ways. >> reporter: gabe cohen, cnn, washington. all right. that's our time. thanks so much for being with us. we'll see you tomorrow. there is still so much ahead in the next hour of the "cnn newsroom. frederick ka whitfieield is up next after the break.

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